Across The Hallowed Ground
by Quillslinger
Summary: In the wake of an attack on the Academy, an order was issued for all the students to evacuate to the countryside. One group never made it to their destination. WIP.
1. Apart

**Title:** Across The Hallowed Ground (1/7)

**Series:** Naruto

**Characters:** Shisui, Itachi, and others.

**Summary:** In the wake of an attack on the Academy, an order was issued for all the students to evacuate to the countryside. One group never made it to their destination.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

**A/N: **Um, so this kind of feels like me shooting myself in the face. I should _probably_ wrap up my other WIPs before barreling into a new one, but this story is pretty simple, and I have most of the plot planned out. Read it and tell me if I should continue?

* * *

**Across The Hallowed Ground**

...

**Part I: Apart**

...

_Day 0._

It was negative one hundred bazillion degrees up there on top of the hill, and the crunch of frozen, iron-hard earth beneath the soles of his feet was starting to feel like child abuse. Shisui turned the blade of his hoe over to attack another square of soil—chop-chop-chop, one, two, three—before digging it snug into the ground. Every gust of wind felt like an open wound on his damp face, raising dry-grass noises in the distance.

He propped himself against the hoe's handle, looked down into the valley. Below him, the ground appeared as an empty rice bowl. The steps leading up to the temple looked like a long white spine, ramrod, cutting into the brownish wood. Shisui squinted at it, hoping to see people coming up, and was disappointed for approximately the twentieth time that morning.

"Why aren't they here yet?" he muttered to himself, dabbing sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. "What the heck could be taking so long?"

"Talking to yourself now? Did you catch a head cold or something?"

He turned, and saw Inuzuka Hana picking her way across the field toward him, Saburo bouncing along at her heels. The annoying little mutt immediately dug his paws into one of the fresh-chopped rows, and began attempting to build some kind of tunnel in the dirt.

"Can you tell him to stop that?" Shisui said. "He's undoing five hours' worth of hard work."

"Glad to see you've made so much progress," Hana said tartly, but signaled for her nin-dog to sit anyway. "Lunch is ready, by the way. You should go clean up if you want any of the good stuff."

"Oh yeah? What're we having?"

"Soybean rice and bran cakes."

"Again?" He couldn't help groaning to himself. "At this rate, we're gonna forget what real food tastes like. Why'd they have to send us all the way out in the middle of nowhere anyway?"

"What were they supposed to do after Kumo's raid?" Hana said. "It's really lucky that none of the students were killed." Inexplicably, she dipped her head, and began to toy with one of her long bangs, a smile tugging at her lips. "You were pretty brave back there."

Shisui rolled his eyes. "Yeah, figuring out how the vent system worked took real guts. Wouldn't even have needed to if everyone hadn't been _stupid_ and got all freaked out about it."

"I didn't freak out," Hana lied. "Anyway, it _was_ pretty scary, what happened to Saitou-sensei. I don't know why _you_ didn't freak out, to be honest."

Loath as he was to admit it, she had a point. Decapitation as a concept was outlandish and even kind of funny when you read about it in fairytales and comic books, none of which even _approached_ the grisliness of witnessing the real thing in action. No matter how many times Shisui closed his eyes and tried to shake the image out of his head, it always came back, a stubborn burn on the back of his eyelids.

"Well, we all got out okay, so you can stop blubbering now," he mumbled. "I still can't believe they made us evacuate. Like we're babies, or _civilians_." The word 'civilians' felt like an evil curse coming out of his mouth. "We're supposed to be shinobi-in-training, and they've got us out here _plowing fields_."

"It's for the war effort. There's food shortage on the front."

"_Fighting_ is for the war effort. Plowing is for _cattle_. What useful skills are we supposed to be learning here? Dig these fields well, young warriors! A perfect crop of turnips is the key to the great ninja arts!"

"You better hope we get a good crop, unless you want to eat soybean rice forever," Hana said darkly. "You guys are so slow the war will probably end before you even get to sow the fields."

Shisui scowled, and kicked a dirt clod at her. "So why aren't you out here busting your butt, anyway?" he said. "You're stronger than anyone else here, freak girl."

Hana glared at him, and stuck her nose in the air. "You'd better clean up and get to the mess hall before all the bran cakes are gone, 'cause I'm not saving you any," she said loftily. "Come along, Saburo." The pup yelped, and trotted back to the temple behind his mistress. Not cute. Not cute _at all_.

-o-

They got an hour of free time after lunch, which Shisui usually used to coerce his classmates into a sparring session or practicing with kunai. For the most part, he'd been successful, but today the collective class had been afflicted with an airborne laziness virus or something, because he found himself alone on the training ground, all the other cretins having scuttled off for a nap or a game of BEING A SLOTHFUL SLACKER WHO SLACKS.

"They are _so_ obviously going to fail the grad exam," Shisui announced with great justice, nailing another flawless kunai into a tree trunk. He aimed a few (deadly) spin kicks at a battered punching pole, and then decided to take a break. He'd go to the gate. Who knew when some refugee party might spontaneously decide to show up and need welcoming?

It must be his lucky day, because he'd barely cleared the pine grove when he heard them. Bright chattering, which meant _kids_. The air was a cold, October crisp even in the early afternoon, but Shisui could no longer feel it; he was nearly vibrating out of his skin with excitement. He broke into a brisk run, sandals scraping against the stone tiles, and arrived at the gate just as the party reached the top of the steps.

Immediately, his heart plummeted. The members of the group were Academy students alright, but one glance informed Shisui that they were all older than him. This wasn't the First Year class.

"Sensei!" Shisui shouted, spotting a man in a Chuunin jacket. "Can I ask you something?"

The man looked around in surprise. "What is it?"

"Are the First Year students with you guys by any chance?"

An odd look passed through the Chuunin's eyes. "No," he said. "I'm only escorting the Third Year class, I'm afraid."

Shisui frowned, and broke into a nervous babble, "It's just that I was told that their group was supposed to leave the day after us, and we've been here nearly a week now and they _still_ haven't got here. Do you—do you think something might have happened?"

The man pointedly ignored Shisui's question. "Do you have friends in the First Year?"

"Yeah, one. He's my cousin actually. Do you know when they might get here?"

"Well," the man started, in a deliberately slow manner. "The First Year party was due to depart on the same day as us, but they're taking the mountain path. It's longer, but safer. My guess is they're going to arrive in a couple of days, so you just sit tight and wait for your cousin, okay?"

Shisui was quiet. "Okay," he replied, after a moment. The Chuunin nodded and gave him a clap to the shoulder, before filing past with his charges. Shisui stayed on the steps. He stared into the shadows of the pine forest, until his eyeballs threatened to freeze over and he heard the bell signaling that it was time to get back to work.

-o-

The wind got colder as the day waned. As the temple bells rang in the twilight, Shisui made his way down to the steps again. The sky above him looked like dry dirt, growing darker by the minute. A _kami_ in every scrap of nature. He was doing exactly what the Chuunin had advised him to do, sitting and waiting, and it felt like total crap.

After about fifteen minutes, he heard someone come up behind him. Hana dropped herself on the step just above the one Shisui was sitting on. He noted that Saburo was not with her.

"So you gonna tell me what's gotten you all in a snit or what?" she asked.

"Or what."

Undeterred, she prodded him in the arm. "Come on. Who put fire ants in your morning miso, huh?"

"I'm worried about my cousin," he said distractedly, and almost bit his tongue. He could have kicked himself. _Keep your mouth shut, moron. _This was nobody's business, let alone some meddling _girl_.

Hana twirled the end of her ponytail thoughtfully. "The war might end soon."

"Says who?"

"Miyuki-sensei. She was saying last night during reading lesson that Yondaime-sama is coming very close to signing a peace treaty with the other villages."

"A peace treaty? What'll that do?"

"I don't know. End the war, I guess." She smiled, and tugged on his sleeve. "I'm going to the nursery to visit my baby brother. Wanna come?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I thought you were worried about your cousin?"

"Obviously I didn't mean _Sasuke_."

"Oh," Hana said, chastised. "Right."

Mostly because he felt bad for snapping at her, Shisui said, "Fine, I'll come."

By the time they got there, however, he'd already begun to regret his decision. The nursery always smelled vaguely of powdered milk and soiled diapers, and Shisui had always been slightly creeped out by the sight of so many little cribs all in one room. Babies weren't his favorite things in the world anyway. Unless something could walk and talk and was normal-sized, Shisui didn't feel like he could trust in its human credentials.

Hana didn't seem to share his sentiments. She was leaning over the crib railings and making gross cooing noises at her brother, who proved exactly which clan he belonged to by raising up the kind of ruckus that wasn't meant for human ears. Shisui could sense all the caretakers glaring daggers in their general direction—Kiba was keeping the other babies awake, and inciting them to follow his bad, awful, no good example.

All except one, of course. Shisui walked over to a corner of the room, where Sasuke was sleeping the sleep of the deadest dead in his crib, one chubby fist stuffed halfway into his slobbery mouth. _This kid could sleep through a massacre_, Shisui thought, pulling a face. The day his class had left Konoha, Mikoto-sama had personally asked him to look after her son. It'd only occurred to him later that she might have meant the _wrong_ son. Nothing could possibly happen to Sasuke here, in this temple up in the cold hills, far, far away from fires and sharp blades alike.

Feeling useless and glum, he made his way to the door, fully intending to abandon Hana to her bizarre girl-habits, and had barely taken a step into the hallway when he caught sight of a familiar face. It was the Chuunin instructor who had been herding the Third Year class earlier. He was talking to one of Shisui's own teachers; neither had noticed him. Shisui was just about to call out a greeting when something the Chuunin said stopped him cold.

"One of your kids asked me about the First Year class today."

Were they talking about _him?_ Immediately, Shisui ducked back into the nursery, and plastered himself to the wall just inside the doorway to eavesdrop.

Presently, he heard Matsuo-sensei's deep voice. "Must have been Uchiha Shisui."

Okay, this was _definitely _about him.

"He's been asking about them nonstop since the day we got here," his teacher went on. "I think he has family in that class."

"Poor kid," the Chuunin said with a sigh. "I didn't know how to tell him, so I had to lie."

"Shisui, what are you doing?" Hana asked. Shisui snapped his head around and motioned for her to be quiet. Her dark eyes widened in realization, and she slid up behind him to listen.

"What do you mean?" Matsuo-sensei was saying.

"Don't tell any of the kids, okay? I don't want them to panic, especially if they have friends and siblings in the First Year. We ran into an ANBU squad on the way up here, and they told me that, well, you know the area outside Konoha that merges onto the mountain path? It's been taken over by retreating Kumo troops."

"So you're saying…"

"Yeah. The First Year party was probably caught behind enemy lines. Frankly, I doubt any of them even made it out."

"_Oh my God_."

"I know. And we thought the attack on the school was bad. I'm telling you, that peace treaty can't come soon enough…"

The voices tapered away as footsteps sounded in the hall, but Shisui was no longer listening.

-o-

"Shisui, stop!"

"What do you want? Just leave me alone!"

Hana grabbed his arm. "I know what you're planning to do," she said, eyes narrowed. "You can't do it."

"Of course I can!"

"No!"

"Don't try to tell me what to do," Shisui yelled, and then came to his senses enough to lower his voice. "What would you do if that was your brother out there? You gonna stand around and let people tell you not to go look for him?"

"Of course I wouldn't," Hana said hotly. "But I wouldn't do it alone either. I would ask the teachers or some other grown-ups to come with me."

"If anyone else cared enough to search for him, they'd be out there searching already. You heard that Chuunin. They think everyone in his group is _dead_."

Hana bit her bottom lip, draining it of blood. "And what if—what if they're right?"

Shisui gritted his teeth. "_Shut up_," he snarled, fists balling at his sides. "Shut _the hell_ up."

This being Hana, the command had the exact opposite effect. "No, I won't," she yelled back, angry soprano rising with every word. "You're an _idiot_, Uchiha Shisui, thinking you can just go out there all alone, you're going to get yourself killed, and you don't even _know_, you don't even know what the heck you're doing or where you're going, and—"

She would have likely gone on shouting herself into a panic attack if Shisui hadn't slapped his hand over her mouth. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't get bitten and contract rabies or something for the trouble.

"He's not dead, okay?" He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway. "Come with me."

The boys' dormitory was a large room in the back of the temple, right by the rear entrance. Since all the other students were either taking their baths or down in the mess hall at this time of day, it was completely empty. Shisui crawled into his bunk, and grabbed a square of goatskin from under his pillow. He shoved it under Hana's nose.

"You see this?"

"What is it?"

"It's a Living Seal. I have one, and he has one. You put a bit of your chakra in it, and then swap. If one of us dies, the ink on the other person's Seal fades away. Does that look faded to you?"

Hana stared at the complicated pictogram in awe. "I've never seen a seal like this before."

Of course she hadn't. Shisui remembered with perfect clarity that day in March, the late afternoon sunlight filtering through shoji doors, soft and golden with new spring. They hadn't set out to _invent_ a new seal or anything, just messing around with ink and paper trying to replicate some of Yondaime's famous techniques. Scrolls of all manners spread out all around them like butterflies, paper wings covering every inch of tatami. Jutsu catalogues, history of seals, cryptology—even a geometry book that neither of them had been able to make head or tail of.

The Living Seal, like a lot of cool things in life, had been an accident, blood from an insignificant paper cut touching a random assortment of looping lines that bore equally little importance. Everything about it had been mundane and utterly normal, up to and including the part where they'd gotten in trouble for testing the Seal out on Mikoto's chickens—but memory had retroactive powers, smoothing delicate watercolors over a child's clumsy scribbling.

Itachi was withdrawn and sometimes infuriating and looked ridiculous in that golden light of late March with a stripe of Chinese ink smeared across his tiny nose, and like hell Shisui was going to lose that. Like hell he was going to just _let it go_.

_It's all my fault_, he thought, a sour feeling tearing sharply into his guts. He should have tried harder to convince his friend to come along with his group. He should never have left him behind.

"He's not dead," Shisui said again, this time with enough vehemence to make Hana flinch. He jumped off the bunk and stalked out of the room, already thinking up preparations for his trip.

No, Itachi was not dead. He was, however, lost somewhere out there in the dark world, and it was Shisui's job to find him and bring him back. It had always been, and it would always be.

-o-

Shisui lay quietly in his bed, listening intently to the sound of light snoring rising and falling all around him. It was an hour after lights out, and most of his classmates, worn out from a day of hard labor, were already sound asleep. The teachers had also turned in for the night. It was time.

The hallway was dark and silent when he slid open the paper door carefully, the only sound that of the highland wind coming in from under doors and windows, howling distantly over the hills. The bathroom was right beside the sleeping quarters, and even if someone saw him going in, they wouldn't be immediately suspicious. Closing the door, Shisui hopped on top of the wooden tub, kicked out the window screen, and jumped outside into the brisk air.

Only about a week until the full moon, and the grounds were practically soaked in soft silver light. The bright, waxing moon hung heavy in the dome of the sky, wreathed in wisps of cloud that resembled the cotton candy sold at summer matsuri. Shisui circled quietly around to the front of the temple, and crawled under the walkway to retrieve the rucksack he had stashed there earlier in the evening.

All the necessary supplies had been easy enough to procure. There was his weapon pouch, of course, secured at his hip. Flashlight, map, compass, water canteen, camping blanket, grappling hook, and a length of rope—these he'd brought from Konoha and never bothered unpacking. The food had been the hardest to get, but by skipping his evening lesson Shisui had managed to sneak into one of the storerooms and pilfer a bunch of soldier pills and hard tacks. He'd grabbed some normal foodstuff too, sealing them inside two small summoning scrolls to keep.

Everything was going according to plan. At this rate, he'd be halfway to Konoha before they even realized he was gone.

Just as he was crossing the moonlit courtyard, a familiar voice called his name. "Shisui, wait!"

It just _figured_ that not only did the members of the Inuzuka clan have the sharpest noses in the village, they had to be the _nosiest_ too. Shisui swung around and hissed, "I swear, Inuzuka Hana, if you _dare_ to tattle on me…"

"I'm not," Hana said, breathless. She was dressed in thin pajamas, her hair loosened from its usual ponytail, tumbling wildly around her shoulders. "I just wanted to give you this."

She handed him a small medical kit, which was incidentally the only thing Shisui had failed to get his hand on. He had no idea how Hana had figured out that he'd be needing one, but for once, he was grateful for those undoubtedly occult female senses that she evidently possessed.

"Thanks a lot," he said, and maybe-sorta grinned at her. It felt like the first time he'd smiled in _days_. "You're alright. I mean, for a girl."

"Here, take this too," Hana said, and pressed something small into his hand. It was a leather bracelet, ornamented only by what appeared to be two very large, very sharp, very white fangs. In the moonlight, they gleamed at him in a really freaky way.

He was decidedly less enthusiastic about _this_ parting gift.

"Listen, Hana, I'm not really into jewelry…"

Hana gave him a look. "That's not just any ordinary bracelet. Those fangs came from Yama-inu, one of the legendary nin-dogs of our clan. They're supposed to bring you good luck. My mother gave this to me before I left the village so me and my brother would be protected by the _kami_."

Shisui blinked. "If it's so important, maybe you shouldn't give it to me."

"I'm not _giving_ it to you," Hana said huffily. "I'm letting you _borrow_ it. Just be sure to bring it back to me safe, okay?"

It was possible she might be trying to bid him well. Shisui felt oddly touched by the gesture, so he pocketed the apparently legendary bracelet, and said, "I'll try my best," feeling his ears growing slightly warm even in the chilly air.

Hana gave him a small nod. Without warning, she rose to the tips of her toes and planted a quick kiss on his left cheek.

"Uh," Shisui said, completely stunned. He was still trying to process what had just happened when Hana reared back and slapped him square across his right cheek.

"What is your _problem?_" he sputtered, rubbing his stinging skin. He hadn't been kidding about her freakish strength: when the occasion called for it, Hana could hit harder than a grown man.

Hana ignored him. "Bring back my bracelet," she said one last time, voice hushed and somewhat watery, before pivoting on her heels and running back toward the dormitory.

Shisui stared dumbfounded at her retreating figure for almost a full minute. Then he shouldered his heavy rucksack and started down the steps leading out of the temple complex, shaking his head as he went. He had known it all along. Girls—and Inuzuka girls especially—were insane. Stark, raving, rabidly insane.

-o-

**feed the author?  
**


	2. Hunters

**Title:** Across The Hallowed Ground (2/7)

**Series:** Naruto

**Characters:** Shisui, Itachi, and others.

**Summary:** In the wake of an attack on the Academy, an order was issued for all the students to evacuate to the countryside. One group never made it to their destination.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi.

* * *

**Across The Hallowed Ground**

**…**

**Part II: Hunters**

**…**

_Day 1_.

The sun was just beginning to dip below the tree line when Shisui woke. He blinked a few times to rid himself of the muddled traces of sleep, and took a quick survey of his surroundings. Through the resinous shadow, he could just barely make out the shapes of trees and rocks—though being twenty feet above the ground helped a bit.

After a moment to reorient, Shisui leapt out of the tree. He had walked most of the previous night and the following morning, taking the mountain path that the Third Year's instructor had mentioned, and had reached his limit around noon. It would be dawn before he needed sleep again. There was a small spring a little way back if he remembered correctly: a cool drink, something to eat, and then it was back on the trail.

He'd barely taken two steps when four dark shapes dropped out of the sky, and Shisui found himself surrounded.

"Hey kid," said one of the new arrivals. "Where're you going?"

The other three men moved in to tighten the circle, menace evident in their steps. Who were they? Bandits? Enemy troops? Definitely ninjas, but even in this grudging light, Shisui could tell that the four men wore no allegiant insignia. Could they be deserters? Missing-Nin?

Any way you sliced it, this was _really_ bad news.

Thinking quickly, Shisui drew himself up and said calmly, "Back to my team. I snuck off for a nap, but now I got to get back before sensei comes looking for me."

He didn't expect that to fly, but his lie did manage to throw his stalkers long enough for him to grab two smoke bombs from his pouch and hurl them at the ground. Through the rising smoke, he launched himself forward, and tried to dart between two of the men, but one of them noticed him at the last minute and moved to block his path. Shisui ducked quickly before he could be grabbed, and drove a kunai into the man's side, right up between two ribs, grounding it in as far as he could. He rolled away as the shinobi heaved forward, retching in pain, and jumped immediately to his feet, ready to break into a run—

—but he wasn't fast enough. Shisui felt the breath choked out of him as his body was jerked roughly backward. One of the attackers had caught him by the back of his jacket. He picked Shisui up clean off the ground and slammed his head into a tree.

His temple hit the bark with a sickening _crack_. He blacked out.

-o-

When Shisui opened his eyes again, his hands and legs were tied. The side of his head ached something monstrous. He shook it tentatively, and the world seemed to reorient itself.

He was lying sideway on the ground, shrimped up against a tree with a gnarly root of some kind poking into his back. It was dark, though Shisui knew he couldn't have been out for very long. As his eyes adjusted, he saw his attackers sitting in a circle around a fire, eating dinner and speaking in low voices among themselves. None of them had yet noticed that he had regained consciousness. The smell of cooked food drifted into his nostrils, making his stomach twist.

He darted his eyes around for his belongings. His rucksack was sitting at one of the men's feet, his weapon pouch piled on top of it. They looked, for the most part, unmolested. Shisui gave his wrist an experimental turn, and felt the rope bite into his skin. The knot was sturdy, but simple—he would be able to undo it given time and motivation.

"What're we going to do with the brat?" one of the men said.

"Sell 'im," another grunted. "We're heading west. They do all sorts of kinjutsu experiments in Kusa, there's a pretty high demand for… live test subjects. Know what I mean?"

There was a loud chorus of laughter. Shisui bit his lip to force the dizziness away, and went back to work on his restraints with renewed fervor. Motivation didn't get much better than _that_.

At this point, Shisui became aware that one of the rogues was staring straight at him. He froze, spine stiffening as their eyes met over the crackling fire. The man's bare torso was wrapped in bandages, and Shisui realized that this must be the one had stabbed earlier during his attempted flight. He had a tattoo of a wolf on his neck done by someone who had some very weird notions about what wolves looked like. There was something in the man's beady eyes that made Shisui vaguely nervous.

"He's awake," the injured man said, jerking his head in Shisui's direction.

"So?" asked one of his companions.

"The little shit stabbed me," the first man grumbled. He brought his thumb to his lips and flicked out his tongue to lick it. "I gotta teach him a lesson."

The other man pulled a face. "Fuck you and your disgusting habits, man. Take him behind those trees if you're gonna do it, none of us here want to watch that shit."

What was that all about? What were they planning to do to him?

The man with the tattoo rose to his feet, moving in the slow, labored way of a person compressed by pain. He pulled out a knife, and made his way toward Shisui. Crap. He had to work faster to loosen the knot. Almost got it. Almost—

The knife sliced through the rope binding Shisui's ankles, narrowly missing his skin. The man was crouching over him, looking down at Shisui with that same fevered expression that suggested hunger. Up close, the skin of his face looked dark and leathery, marred by several streaks of whitish scars. Eyes black, twitchy like an epileptic rat.

"Stand up," he ordered. When Shisui failed to comply, the man pointed the knife in his face and repeated his command, voice low and loaded with malice. "_Stand up_."

Shisui struggled upright, stretching his legs a few times to shake out the numbness that had settled into the muscles. He had managed to undo most of the knot, but had to hold the coil of rope in place to avoid suspicion. The man walked him into the grove of trees, the knife held to Shisui's back. Maybe once they were far enough in the woods he could try to make a dash for it.

A hard, sudden shove between the shoulderblades sent Shisui tripping face-first into the duff. He barely had time to spit dead leaves out of his mouth when his captor was upon him, one large hand splayed over the back of his head to force him down. His breath felt hot on the back of Shisui's neck. Something was going to happen to him—be _done_ to him—and he didn't know what but sheer panic rushed up his throat like surging vomit anyway. His face was still smushed to the ground and he could barely _breathe_, his nose crushed and suffused with the damp, loamy smell of the forest soil. He couldn't turn his head or move and _he was going to die_.

The rank gusts of breath were still on his neck, scattering strands of hair, and they were growing shallow and ragged in a way that made Shisui want to recoil, curl in on himself and get as far away as possible. And then his shirt was being lifted—the cold air made goosebumps mushroom wildly across his clammy skin, but not nearly as much as the rough palm that was sliding up his back, lingering nauseatingly at the indented spot just above his waist. Fingers tugged at the band of his shorts, blunt nails scraping his frightened skin. _No one_ had ever touched him in this horrible way before. No one should be _allowed_. Something _very bad_ was about to happen and he wanted to turn his head and throw up—

—and that was when Shisui remembered, through the suffocation and haze of panic, that his hands were free and that he'd been trained to fight. He drew in his elbow with all his strength and swung it backward in a blind arc.

Miraculously, it made contact: his attacker yelped and reared back instinctively, clutching his bleeding nose. Shisui twisted around, and taking aim, sent a vicious kick straight into the man's injured side. He scrambled way quickly, shrugged off the rope, and began clawing out seals as fast as he could. _Snake. Ram. Boar._

The man had recovered and was rising to his feet. He wiped his mouth, and picked up the knife, a dark fury twisting his already-hideous visage into something terrible, demonic. Shisui's pulse was running sprints in his ears, faster, _faster_, he was running out of time. _Monkey. Horse. Tige—_

The fireball hit his assailant full in the face just as he was about to launch himself at Shisui. The man howled in unimaginable agony as the flame engulfed him, and continued to scream for a long time, the high-pitched sound almost inhuman, rending the stillness of the night. The fire went out almost immediately but his clothes and hair were still burning, the top of his head a crown of ashy, blackened wisps, aflame. One eye was welded shut, the other scorched and rolling into his skull, caked with mucus, mired in the sooty creases of the eyelids. Traumatized skin giving off a gut-souring stench—but now his screams of pain had drawn the attention of the other three. Voices sounded in the clearing, _they were coming_.

Sharp panic shot through Shisui's paralyzed mind. He had to get away but there was no way he could outrun them, no way to escape, and without thinking his fingers came together again in another seal and all he could think was, _Away, away, get me away from here…_

And suddenly his ears were filled with a _whoosh_ of wind, and for a fleeting instant his body felt light and formless, melting into the air itself. When he was solid and anchored again, Shisui found himself _thirty feet above the ground_, and had to quickly grab the trunk of the tree to keep from falling to his death. His mind reeled with shock and triumph—he'd spent for-friggin'-_ever_ practicing that technique, but it had never worked this well before.

_Awesome._

Shisui braced his feet on the branch for purchase, and peered down at the three shinobi, clustered around the burnt man and shouting angrily at each other. The air still soaked in plumes of coagulated smoke. He drew back into the shadow. They were searching for him on the ground, but it was only a matter of time before his location was found out. He had to get out of here _now_.

_His supplies_. Without them, he had no hope of making this journey, and while he could do without most of the stuff, he couldn't part with his weapons or Hana's bracelet—_the Seal_. There was no other choice. He _had_ to go back for them. Maybe he could pull it off. The distance wasn't that great…

Taking a deep breath, Shisui formed the seal, and narrowed all his thoughts into a small, dark corner of his mind. There was a roar of wind in his ears, freezing on his cheeks, and then his body slammed into the dusty ground with enough force to knock the breath out of his chest. With relief, Shisui realized that he'd just _barely_ avoided rocketing straight into the campfire, which would have been nicely ironic. Definitely needed to work on his navigation, but no time for that—he dove for his rucksack, and struggled to pull the straps over his arms. He grabbed his weapon pouch, and looked up in time to see one of the rogues raising a kunai, taking aim…

The blade sliced through the air, nailing into the ground with a loud thud mere seconds after Shisui vanished from reality.

-o-

Shisui ran. One leap after another. _Pop_. Reappear. _Pop_. Reappear. Here for one moment and gone again, his blood singing a hungry, primitive chant with neither melody nor cadence.

He tried to keep up the jutsu for as long as he could, and when his strength bottomed out and he went sprawling in the dirt, picked himself up and _kept on_ running, legs pistoning under him so rapidly the muscles screamed and threatened to tear. He flew blindly through the threadbare wood, cruel lashes of wind nipping his face, until his foot rammed into a protruding root and his body went tumbling, down and down a long slope stubbled with shrubs and jagged stones.

Luckily, a pile of mulch broke his fall. Shisui lay flat on his back in the sludge and tried to catch his breath, staring up into the sky above, where drab clouds gathered in tangled skeins across a moonless canopy. Dead leaves squelching with moisture. Branches everywhere. The air still as death: breath-puffs faint, ghostly white.

His heart still thumping, Shisui pulled his battered body to a sitting position. He listened warily, but the only sounds in the bitter dark were the distant cries of night birds. There was no telling where he was or how far he'd run, but it seemed that his former captors were not giving chase. Nevertheless, he crawled to a base of a large tree and tried to shield himself as best as possible in its embrace. His legs scraped and quaking—he was freezing, but couldn't risk starting a fire.

The shakes did not go away. Instead, they appeared to be getting worse by the moment, wracking his entire body. Fractured sobs were fighting their way up his throat, hot, humiliating tears streaming down his face. He scrubbed at his cheeks furiously, clawing his aching eyes in ineffectual swipes. _Stop crying, idiot. Stop crying right now or I'll kill you. Get it under control._

He got it under control.

What next?

First, strap weapon pouch back on.

Then, check belongings to make sure nothing was missing.

He groped blindly through his rucksack, and only breathed easily again when he found everything still in its place. His fingers brushed the worn goatskin of the Living Seal, and he closed his grip upon it tightly, feeling a solid blockade lifting out of his chest. Couldn't lose this. It was more important than anything, than _his life_. He placed the Seal carefully back into its compartment, and felt something sharp poke his finger.

Hana's heirloom bracelet. Shisui pulled it out and dangled it in front of his face. "Hey, aren't you supposed to bring good luck?" he said mockingly. "Because I could really use some right now, you useless piece of crap."

Then he looked up into a pair of piercing amber eyes.

How the wolf—mountain dog?—had snuck up on him, Shisui had no idea, but that didn't change the fact that it was there, _right there_, long snout inches from his nose. He froze in shock, hands falling slack to his sides. It didn't even occur to him to draw a weapon.

Was this how he was going to die? Mauled to death by a friggin' _wolf?_ This was so _unfair_. He'd come this far, gone through all kinds of horrible things, and now he was going to end up being premium canine chow. Some good luck charm.

The wolf hadn't moved from its position. It was still staring at him with those pale, glittering eyes, like it was assessing Shisui—only that was crazy and ridiculous and completely impossible. Then again, he wasn't even sure this animal was a _wolf_. Normal wolves, to his best knowledge, weren't pale blue. Or the size of a small tiger. Or _faintly glowing_ at the edges.

_Maybe I'm dreaming_, Shisui thought frantically. Excessive amounts of adrenaline went to your brain and made you hallucinate. Obviously, he had gone temporarily insane. That probably happened a lot to people who'd narrowly escaped death.

The very, very blue wolf tilted its head, and took a small step forward. Shisui flinched—hallucination or not, it was still _very _big, and probably had correspondingly big teeth—but his terror changed to surprise when the great animal lowered its body and began licking the cuts and scrapes on his bare knees and calves. For a figment of imagination, it had a strangely realistic tongue, very wet and warm, a little rough on the skin. Scratchy. Huh.

After a moment, the wolf lifted its head, and applied itself to licking Shisui's face, running its warm tongue over all the scratches left by rocks and twigs, the throbbing bruise on the side of his head. This done, it dropped onto its powerful haunches and carefully placed its head on Shisui's shoulder, nudging his head lightly as though dropping an unsubtle hint.

It was as close to a comforting touch as he could remember receiving in days, so Shisui threw away the rest of his rationality and wrapped his tired arm around the wolf's neck, burying his face into its taut shoulder. Hallucinations had body heat? That was one for the book. He closed his eyes, let his breathing even out. The wolf made a rumbling noise in its throat, and nuzzled Shisui lightly with its wet nose, pressing in closer to shield his body from the iron cold.

The wind was picking up. It raked frosty fingers through the leaves, sending them twirling. A flash of lightning flared, and thunder could be heard trundling in the east. Imminent rain.

Shisui raised his fingers tentatively, and scratched the back of an alert ear. "So I know you're not real or anything," he whispered into warm fur. "But do you happen to know some place I can crash for the night without getting rained to death?"

The wolf made a low noise again, and lifted itself gracefully to its feet. It turned, and began to walk away. A sense of desolation overtook Shisui, but then the wolf looked at him over its shoulder and beckoned with its head. Evidently asking him to follow. This entire adventure was ill-advised enough without following supernatural manifestations into some unknown depth of these dark, sinister woods—but hey, what was one more act of insanity?

The air chilled steadily as they made their way through the dense trees. The wolf kept to a sure, unhurried pace. It seemed to know exactly where it was going, and felt no need to arrive there with any urgency, which was more than could be said for Shisui. Incorporeal beasts might not mind being rained on, but he certainly couldn't afford a spontaneous case of onset pneumonia.

After what seemed a very long while, the trees sparsed out. The scent of flowering briar filled Shisui's nose, sweet and powdery, and he gazed with awe at a huge camphor tree, soaring majestically up over him into the sky, the dome of its thick leaves roofing the entire clearing. The wolf trotted through the briar patch, and beckoned to Shisui again. Using its snout, it shifted aside a curtain of moss, revealing a hollow in the base of the great tree.

Gratefully, Shisui crawled forward, going as deeply as he could into the dark tunnel, which weirdly seemed to go on forever. The narrow corridor was suspiciously free of slime, carpeted with a thin layer of dry grass. The moss curtain rustled. The wolf had followed him into the tree hollow, which against all reason managed to accommodate its large frame with ease. It curled up near the entrance, and blinked at him with those large, glowing eyes.

_I'm here. Don't be afraid._

_My craziness is just beyond hope_, Shisui thought, but dismissed the thought when exhaustion crested and shook him all over, sucking him under its sweep. Yawns threatening to shatter his jaw, he unpacked his camping blanket and wrapped it securely around himself. He settled down beside his otherworldly guardian, and curled in as close as he dared.

Outside, the storm was raging like nobody's business, rain pouring down in tiny waterfalls, pattering with increasing intensity. Shisui closed his eyes and fell asleep to that heavy, earth-steady rhythm, his dreams absent of nightmares.

-o-

_Day 2_.

Sunlight on his face, soft and gauzy, sieved through a thin green curtain. Birdsong. The air rain-washed and fresh, a clean, sharp scent like new winter, and for a moment Shisui had absolutely no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. He remembered being captured—a faint chill touched the back of his neck, which he ignored. _Then_ he had escaped by virtue of pure _awesomeness_, and after that… there'd been a really big tree, and then this hollow where he'd evidently spent the night. Everything else was a blur.

When he was ready, Shisui parted the moss covering carefully and peeked outside. There was no one around. He stepped out into the sobering morning, and something at his feet caught his eyes.

A single pawprint was imprinted in the soft, damp earth. It was big enough to fit his entire foot_._

Couldn't think about that now. If he did, he'd lose his mind for good.

It turned out to Shisui's relief that he wasn't as far from the main trail as he'd feared. By some stroke of luck or act of divine intervention or something, he had also gone in mostly the right direction. Despite the ordeal of the previous day, Shisui felt rested, full of renewed strength and confidence. The day was dewy and clear, deceptively gorgeous for October. From here, he'd have to be more careful, take advantage of daylight hours, walk nonstop until he reached his destination if he had to. Still, it was comforting to know that you had at least one card up your sleeve to get you out of a tight spot.

-o-

_Day 3_.

Mid-afternoon saw the end of the road. Shisui came down from the mountain, and found himself in a lush valley. About half a mile ahead, he smelled woodsmoke—cooking fires—and came upon a small encampment of what turned out to be refugees from the Fire Country. Happy to be among his countrymen again, he merged into the colony and weaved through the medley of tents, hoping against hope to find the First Year party among them, or at least someone who had seen them around.

No luck.

Evening fell, and all the positive energy he had accumulated in the last two days seemed to fade with the sunlight. It took all the dignity he possessed not to fold up his arms and hide his head behind them. He compromised by placing his chin on top of them instead.

"What's your damage, kid? Looking at your long face's killing my appetite."

Shisui looked up sullenly into the face of the Leaf Chuunin he had sort of barnacled himself to in a bid to gather information. The young man—Benkei, his parents must have been in a mean mood—was part of the team charged with guarding the refugees. He was big and red-cheeked and extremely talky, which was good because it meant Benkei was very willing to dispense whatever insider's knowledge he possessed. Bad, because the insider's knowledge he possessed had nothing to do with Shisui's mission. _Worse_, because the man just _couldn't take a hint_.

"What'd you say your name was again?"

"Whatever."

"What was that?"

"Hiroshi," Shisui said, lifting his head. "Sorry, just busy thinking."

Benkei shot him an amused look. "You do that a lot?" he said, and cackled like this was the height of grand comedy. Shisui wanted to bury _his entire face_.

"So you were saying something," he said deliberately. "Something about Kumo occupying some place? Where's that?"

"It's this little village on the edge of the county," said Benkei. "Just a couple miles from here, actually. Tiny place, maybe one-fifty in population tops, mostly civilians." His expression darkened abruptly. "I don't think too many of them made it out in time."

Shisui swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in his throat. "Why are those Kumo guys even staying there? Their village's losing, shouldn't they be trying to get out too?"

"They probably want that too," Benkei said cryptically. He took two roasted corns off the fire, and handed one to Shisui. "Kind of hard, though, with our ANBU pressing in from this front, and the forest to their back."

"What's wrong with the forest?"

"What's _wrong_ with the forest? That's where _it_ is."

Shisui blinked. "It?"

"The _demon fox_, of course."

"That's a real thing?"

Benkei stared at him in stark bafflement, clearly offended by Shisui's skepticism. "Excuse my language, but where the hell have you _been_, kiddo?"

"On the run."

"Are your parents shinobi?" Benkei asked.

"Uh, no," Shisui demurred. "My mom's dead, and my dad is a—fruit-seller."

One lie plus one truth and a half wasn't bad. His dad certainly _talked_ about the virtues of fresh fruit in a balanced organic diet often enough to outsmarm a real salesman, anyway.

Benkei made a frustrated noise, like this was exactly the kind of thing he'd expect from a fruit-seller's son, which made Shisui feel a bit insulted on behalf of fruit-sellers everywhere.

"The demon fox is most certainly a real thing. Don't let any of the other guys hear what you just said, okay? Some of them still have friends and family out there fighting—and let me tell you, it's bad."

"How bad?" Shisui asked.

"_Bad_," Benkei said seriously. "It took out an entire district of our village on its first appearance, and then just—_vanished_. That's the worst thing: you just never know when it'll pop out of the ground again. It's only been three days, and the casualty—oh, and _supposedly_, it lives in the forest, so do you even have to _ask_ why nobody dares to go in there?"

"Okay," Shisui mumbled. Like he had time to be worrying about this mythical mumbo-jumbo now. Why was he even talking to this guy? This was the _epitome_ of stupid.

Benkei tilted his head to the sky, suddenly philosophical. "Half a decade of war, and just when things are starting to settle down, some demon comes along and goes on a rampage. I keep telling people, the gods must really hate ninjas, 'cause they sure don't seem to want us around."

_Bet people just love hearing that_, Shisui thought, and lifted his eyes to the sky as well. His mind held no demon-tinted thoughts. In this moment, the road felt endless, the distance unbreachable.

"Are you here by yourself or something?" Benkei asked, sounding perplexed. "Your father isn't accompanying you?"

"No," Shisui said blandly, gnawing on his roasted corn. "He wanted to stay behind to—man the family's shop. My old man's all into his job like that."

"People these days," Benkei muttered. He gave Shisui another skewer of corn, and a painfully earnest smile. "Well, you stick close to me, okay? It's really easy to get lost in all this madness. You don't want to get left behind, little buddy."

"Sure," Shisui said slowly. Strangers with this degree of earnestness made him super awkward.

Benkei jumped to his feet and wiped his hands on his pants. "I have to go patrol. Help yourself to the food, and then get some sleep. We're heading out early tomorrow."

Shisui nodded, and forced a reciprocating smile that felt more than a little wobbly. Oh, he was heading out early tomorrow alright. For a moment, he felt a bit sorry for Benkei, who would probably freak out a little when he found out that his new charge had disappeared on his watch. Hopefully he'd get over it—and not hold it against Shisui too much for making off with a good chunk of his rations.

-o-

**feed the author?**


End file.
